Frontier is not tonight because I do not have time to set it up. It is not simply turning it on. The Sanctuary upgrade took around 4 hours (plus the testing and experiments in days and weeks before).

Ultimately, at this time of year, shceduling does not matter - someone will miss out. There is no way of finding a date that suits all. Some want it sooner (because they want to get started) some later (because they are working/away).

I say stick to the proposed friday and be done with it. Personally, it means that I will miss out but that's fine. It is simply a bad time of year for a world start, but that is no-one's fault (and certainly not Sorontar's).

Administering a server - especially one with various plugins - is a complex and time consuming task. Most people are not aware just how much time is sucked up by it. So be patient just a little longer and you will have your Frontier. Use the next week to spend some time with your families!

After playing with only a few plugins on a local server to toy with the worldborder fill commands and a few other plugins I think I can grasp the true reality of what is involved, so thank you in advance

I don't see what's so important with the starting time anyway, it's not like the world isn't still there a few days after it launched.

This.

It ain't going to be mined out in a day

Perhaps a largish protected zone around spawn could be in place until some time in January. That way those of us that started our holidays yesterday and are are already bored out of our skulls can have something to do - and then we can have a community event in January to build up the spawn area.

The original Survival world started on New Year's Day, 2011. It was a chaotic scene as everyone started on a small sand island (and I mean small) with zombies and skeletons approaching from either sides of us. Whilst fending them off, we tried to build up what was to become the spawn fortress. Eventually some players were bold enough to journey away and start the community mine, enabling us to strengthen the fortress. It was an event.

While we might all be a bit more experienced at battling mobs and the game has changed, the start of Frontier could be something similar, especially if we have hunger to also deal with.

So that is why I am trying to find a convenient time for Frontier's start. As for all events, I realise that this is hard to do, especially with players from all over the globe, but I see no harm in trying.

Sorontar
ps. Thanks to Bukkit, there will be no spawn protection, so things can be built around spawn.